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ninjewtsu posted:I think they were, at most, implying that that one type of game should be made by one person Yeah it was clearly this. I don't expect something like Wasteland to be made by one person. OMORI's ask was 20k which is "I'm working on this in my spare time" money. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 04:55 on Dec 31, 2020 |
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Dec 31, 2020 04:45
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I suppose the obvious comparison is Undertale, which was kickstarted for 50k, took 2 years, and was made primarily (but not entirely) by one guy. Whether that is a fair comparison could be debated, but I think it is the most direct one, as Undertale is more or less the benchmark that all rpgmaker-ish games score themselves by these days.
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Dec 31, 2020 05:52
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yeah how dare they get other people to help and release the full game eventually to what appears to be glowing praise from what ive seen. this is an outrage.
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Dec 31, 2020 08:40
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Pavlov posted:I suppose the obvious comparison is Undertale, which was kickstarted for 50k, took 2 years, and was made primarily (but not entirely) by one guy. Whether that is a fair comparison could be debated, but I think it is the most direct one, as Undertale is more or less the benchmark that all rpgmaker-ish games score themselves by these days. Yeah I was thinking Undertale and LISA.
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Dec 31, 2020 14:45
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Stux posted:yeah how dare they get other people to help and release the full game eventually to what appears to be glowing praise from what ive seen. this is an outrage. Is anyone in the thread actually mad about this
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Dec 31, 2020 17:48
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ninjewtsu posted:Is anyone in the thread actually mad about this Its a typical game of goon telephone moving the goalposts bit by bit so nobody is actually responding to each other. But what started it was this: Groovelord Neato posted:200k for the type of game they were making is pretty good money. The goal was 1/10 that. poo poo I live in a pretty high cost of living area and that'd float me longer than it took for them to put the game out. If you're a one man team then that's good money sure (depending upon the length of the project), but if you have 10 people suddenly the math there is completely different. Making the argument that only one-man teams should be viable for some game genres is pretty lovely. Like its incredible that Hollow Knight was made by 3 people, but you're getting into some seriously insane survivorship bias if you think the whole industry should be held to that standard forever and nothing else should be allowed. We also don't know if Team Cherry crunched themselves or how much they struggled before they got paid. Unrealistic expectations.
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Dec 31, 2020 22:00
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I think it is possible to believe both that games are shockingly resource intensive to make ethically, and that some developers can squander the resources they have.
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Dec 31, 2020 23:07
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Pavlov posted:I think it is possible to believe both that games are shockingly resource intensive to make ethically, and that some developers can squander the resources they have. Well obviously. But what does 'squander' even mean here? Did Bioware squander millions experimenting on a huge open world game for Mass Effect: Andromeda only to scrap it and make a bad game? Well, yes. But if you don't take risks then you never get anything fresh, you just get boring sequels, which is what the AAA game industry already does. If we want games to be artistic and do new things, they have to be able to effectively waste some development here and there. If by squander you mean paying yourself a bunch of money to do no work, yeah that's another beast. But I think the argument "they had 200k so they must be spoiled" is really bad. If you have evidence they acted in bad faith then that's what we should be talking about; not the size of the budget and the final quality being some implication of wrongdoing.
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Dec 31, 2020 23:15
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To squander is to use something up unwisely. It's less important how the time or money gets used up, just that you find you have little to show for it. I don't want to keep picking on OMORI, but I've been reading through the old backer updates so it's the best example I'm going to be able to give. Here are some excerpts from March 2016: quote:[...] The English PC and MAC versions of the game are still set to release Fall 2016. The 3DS Version and Japanese translation will be released at a later time in 2017. The reason we cannot have a set release date is because I want the game to feel complete when it is released, and I keep thinking of more ideas that will enhance the game. It’s hard to gauge how long the production will take, because new ideas keep popping up, and I believe adding them will only benefit the game in the long run. As a note, they later decided against that first-person cut-scene decision. Most of them end up 3rd person. Here is an excerpt from August 2016: quote:I really apologize for the delays thus far, and we will do our best to complete the game by this upcoming winter. We are aiming for somewhere between December and January! When I began the project, I underestimated how long it would take to complete a game, especially with the addition of OMORI’s stretch goals. As OMORI grew, I kept trying to add in and improve elements for the game, but this unfortunately also prolonged the production time as well. There are other things mentioned as well; technical issues, personal issues, and the like. I highlight the above because these posts are still 4 years before the eventual release. A trailer then came out in January 2017, featuring a lot of areas that will get either scrapped or reworked heavily. It's also missing the single defining NPC of the game, which will show up prominently in the 2020 trailer. The first clear sign that the finished game is taking form is the demo released in April 2018. Even this sees heavy revision, and it's still not fully clear the developers understand exactly where their plot is going. The game does eventually come out, and it does end up very good, but the process the game went through makes it seem a minor miracle that it did at all. A certain amount of iteration is necessary to test the waters for new ideas, yes, but at some point, to iterate fruitlessly is to squander resources. False starts and feature creep have been the death of many a game. I'm still not certain how the game managed to stretch its funds as long as it did. I've heard accusation that the work environment for the secondary devs might not have been a very friendly one, but they appear to be under NDA so it's hard to confirm. I don't think that it's hypocritical to have enjoyed the result of a project, but still be critical of the development practices. That's basically the place I'm at with OMORI.
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Jan 1, 2021 01:31
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Pavlov posted:I don't think that it's hypocritical to have enjoyed the result of a project, but still be critical of the development practices. That's basically the place I'm at with OMORI. No that's plenty reasonable. As I said, if you have actual details of mismanagement, then you have a point. But then you're better off focusing on those details of mismanagement rather than balking at the size of the total budget in itself.
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Jan 1, 2021 01:41
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Zaphod42 posted:No that's plenty reasonable. As I said, if you have actual details of mismanagement, then you have a point. But then you're better off focusing on those details of mismanagement rather than balking at the size of the total budget in itself. While it's potentially more productive to do that, I was only able to bring up those details because I played the game fairly completionistly, tracked down the other details from the data-miners as the data-mined it, read all the backer only kickstarter updates, and reviewed the dev's tumblr and any other media I could find to make sure I wasn't misunderstanding things. Other people are probably not so transfixed by a game that came out a few days ago, so I'm not going to begrudge someone for just thinking, "It took them 6 1/2 years to make an RPGmaker game and they had 200k up front? Something must have gone wrong."
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Jan 1, 2021 04:01
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Pavlov posted:Meanwhile I've been hearing from more places that the Head Dev/Publisher OMOCAT spent a lot of their time building a successful clothing line instead of a video game, so it could turn out that this game takes after Night in the Woods in being made in spite of its lead rather than because of them. it's tangential to the topic at hand, but alec holowka (serial abuser who created production nightmares for most projects he was attached to and later offed himself) was not the project lead for nitw that was scott benson, who by all accounts drove himself close to the grave to get the game done, in no small part because of his proximity to holowka
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Jan 1, 2021 05:42
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Zaphod42 posted:Its a typical game of goon telephone moving the goalposts bit by bit so nobody is actually responding to each other. You're doing some extreme extrapolating on that post every time you quote it and it's kinda weird because I don't think they actually believe that games like omori should only ever be made by one person, that's just the least charitable reading of that post you could possibly make that is still somewhat validated by the content of the post. I think a lot of people in this thread have some game dev discourse position they really really want to rail against and arent terribly discerning of if anyone in the thread actually really represents that position too well before going off about it
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Jan 1, 2021 17:59
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ninjewtsu posted:You're doing some extreme extrapolating on that post every time you quote it and it's kinda weird because I don't think they actually believe that games like omori should only ever be made by one person, that's just the least charitable reading of that post you could possibly make that is still somewhat validated by the content of the post.  I don't think they believe games should be made by one person either; that's the whole point, why you shouldn't expect budgets to be so small. But they literally said "poo poo I live in a pretty high cost of living area and that'd float me longer than it took for them to put the game out." and it seems obvious that you have to divide by the number of people on staff before you can compare to cost of living. Its just a single bad argument and I was pointing out how ridiculous it is. Not sure why that's so hard to follow. I'm not extrapolating anything what do you think these words mean Groovelord Neato posted:200k for the type of game they were making is pretty good money. The goal was 1/10 that. poo poo I live in a pretty high cost of living area and that'd float me longer than it took for them to put the game out. Because if you live in a high-cost-of-living area, there is simply no way that 10+ people can all live for several years off 200k. The math only works if you're assuming for a single person, which is a nonsense comparison. What is extreme about that? Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Jan 1, 2021 |
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Jan 1, 2021 20:47
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regarding the apparent sharp change in direction with omori - i was never aware of the promo materials, but from what i've played of it so far and with the timeline that's been laid out in this thread, i wouldn't be surprised if Deltarune's release had a lot to do with it all roads lead back to Toby with indie rpg's these days and the game's structure looks like it was heavily inspired by what we got in the DR episode 1 demo (on top of the other obvious sources like yume nikki)
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Jan 1, 2021 21:27
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Oxxidation posted:regarding the apparent sharp change in direction with omori - i was never aware of the promo materials, but from what i've played of it so far and with the timeline that's been laid out in this thread, i wouldn't be surprised if Deltarune's release had a lot to do with it Oh I'm certain Toby Fox's game design style influenced OMORI. There's actually a bonus track from Toby Fox hidden in OMORI. They got him to sign on for that before Undertale even came out. Not sure about Deltarune specifically. The OMORI demo came out a few months before Deltarune, and even with everything that changed, the style is still pretty consistent. The demo itself was backer only (I never got my key), but there are youtube videos of people playing it if you want to look it up. I'm pretty sure Undertale blowing up the way it did probably caused a lot of design changes though.
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Jan 1, 2021 21:54
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Zaphod42 posted:Because if you live in a high-cost-of-living area, there is simply no way that 10+ people can all live for several years off 200k. The math only works if you're assuming for a single person, which is a nonsense comparison. It's pretty clear from the ask and type of game this was it was originally a single person project.
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Jan 3, 2021 00:25
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Groovelord Neato posted:It's pretty clear from the ask and type of game this was it was originally a single person project. OMORI actually had 4 team members credited in the original kickstarter: the publisher/writer/artist, 2 musicians, and a person with RPGmaker experience. Even games that are primarily 1 person generally have some other credits. Game design is a pretty multidisciplinary art, you have to be quite the polymath to do it entirely on your own if you want to make anything quality. At the very least a game needs an artist, a musician, a programmer, and usually a writer. The writer and programmer you generally can't phone out, but art and music can sometimes get done on commission. You can take shortcuts on all of those; on writing by having a game with little plot, on art by having a very low-detail style, on music with cheap licenses or creative commons work, and on programming by using a more paint-by-number engine and an not innovating much. You probably don't want to take too many of those at once though. A more realistic one-man-team would be someone who can program, write, and one of draw/model/compose, who can then use kickstarter money to commission other assets. Given the ambition OMORI eventually showed in its scope, they either seriously low-balled the kickstarter goal, or the eventual funding amount contributed to substantial scope creep.
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Jan 3, 2021 03:53
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Well, the fact that the game eventually came out is still a plus. Most of the time these starry eyed projects end up as "whoops I was inexperienced at managing the game and all the money's long gone and we have to cancel" (or refuse to even accept that and say that the game is 'definitely still coming out, expect the next update soon!') or just simply ghost the backers and you never hear from them again. Even if it takes forever, actually continuing to work on the game and actually release something after the money is (probably) used up is certainly preferable!
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Jan 3, 2021 06:38
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Original_Z posted:Well, the fact that the game eventually came out is still a plus. Most of the time these starry eyed projects end up as "whoops I was inexperienced at managing the game and all the money's long gone and we have to cancel" (or refuse to even accept that and say that the game is 'definitely still coming out, expect the next update soon!') or just simply ghost the backers and you never hear from them again. I'm getting flashbacks to Super Retro Squad. If memory serves, they spent their Kickstarter money on a down payment for a house, moved the team into said house, and did nothing while waiting for an upcoming Unity 2D update that they hoped would basically make the game for them.
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Jan 3, 2021 10:56
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Shine posted:I'm getting flashbacks to Super Retro Squad. If memory serves, they spent their Kickstarter money on a down payment for a house, moved the team into said house, and did nothing while waiting for an upcoming Unity 2D update that they hoped would basically make the game for them. did it work
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Jan 3, 2021 11:02
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Dissapointed Owl posted:did it work The update didn't include an "import Flash game" function, so nope.
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Jan 3, 2021 11:06
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Shine posted:The update didn't include an "import Flash game" function, so nope. darn
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Jan 3, 2021 11:42
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Shine posted:The update didn't include an "import Flash game" function, so nope. Didn't they change the name, slap it up on Greenlight, and make it so that each level was a separate game (and therefore a separate purchase) so that they had a built in excuse to never finish it? Or did they just make more trailers and a new presskit for it and continue to not work on the actual game. There isn't a whole lot on the web past 2018 to go by. Edit: Looks like they failed to release anything on Greenlight as well. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=825074684) All that exists is a single 5$ level on itch.io. EricFate fucked around with this message at 17:15 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 17:06
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Shine posted:I'm getting flashbacks to Super Retro Squad. If memory serves, they spent their Kickstarter money on a down payment for a house, moved the team into said house, and did nothing while waiting for an upcoming Unity 2D update that they hoped would basically make the game for them. Not sure any other Kickstarter tops this one. Maybe Confed Express which was just a straight up scam.
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Jan 3, 2021 17:13
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Is there anything sadder than going to a kickstarter page that hasn't updated in five years and seeing loads of fresh comments saying 'I invoke my rights under Kickstarter's Terms of Use' like there's a single penny of that money left for them to refund?
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Jan 3, 2021 17:17
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Groovelord Neato posted:Not sure any other Kickstarter tops this one. Maybe Confed Express which was just a straight up scam. Confed Express actually published a working game, though... The amount of effort they put into scamming people out of 40 grand is honestly kind of baffling. SimonChris fucked around with this message at 17:47 on Jan 3, 2021 |
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Jan 3, 2021 17:42
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SimonChris posted:Confed Express actually published a working game, though... In an entirely different genre and with 90% of the features cut, but it is true, they did release a product that had the same name and art assets as the thing people donated their money to support.
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Jan 3, 2021 21:58
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Shine posted:I'm getting flashbacks to Super Retro Squad. If memory serves, they spent their Kickstarter money on a down payment for a house, moved the team into said house, and did nothing while waiting for an upcoming Unity 2D update that they hoped would basically make the game for them. Dissapointed Owl posted:did it work i remember this one, it was sad but also a little disgusting. it was a video of this grown-rear end man pouting and crying to prove how unity's editing tools weren't working the way he wanted. which, to be fair, it looked like he probably assembled it mostly correctly, so it could easily have been Just Unity Things(tm) because major problems with the engine are plentiful and frequently ignored by the developers. but when the prefab engine fails, you're supposed to roll up your sleeves and hard-code that fucker until it works, at least if you've already taken the cash. iirc he went on to spend the rest of the decade developing a per-pixel lighting shader that looked exactly like every other existing per-pixel lighting shader in the world
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Jan 3, 2021 22:13
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Unity wasn't great for 2D until later so they were just ahead of their time 
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Jan 4, 2021 01:55
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multijoe posted:Is there anything sadder than going to a kickstarter page that hasn't updated in five years and seeing loads of fresh comments saying 'I invoke my rights under Kickstarter's Terms of Use' like there's a single penny of that money left for them to refund? The best part are when the comments eventually change to "I contacted Kickstarter and they said I can't get my money back". Where did this whole "invoke my rights" thing even start from? I see it everywhere and don't think it has ever lead to anything satisfactory.
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Jan 4, 2021 02:13
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I think people started to get overconfident about their chances of getting anything back after a couple of US state attorneys-general went after some prominent failed board game kickstarters a few years ago and managed to squeeze a little money out of the devs.
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Jan 4, 2021 02:41
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Original_Z posted:The best part are when the comments eventually change to "I contacted Kickstarter and they said I can't get my money back". sovcits probably
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Jan 4, 2021 02:58
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FREEBACKER ON THE LAND
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Jan 4, 2021 03:00
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Pavlov posted:I suppose the obvious comparison is Undertale, which was kickstarted for 50k, took 2 years, and was made primarily (but not entirely) by one guy. Whether that is a fair comparison could be debated, but I think it is the most direct one, as Undertale is more or less the benchmark that all rpgmaker-ish games score themselves by these days. People also forget he had a decent bit of side income from essentially being the head composer for Homestuck and also actually living in the homestuck writers house for a portion of the games development.
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Jan 4, 2021 08:20
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SimonChris posted:Confed Express actually published a working game, though... Everything about Confederate Express still confuses me Assistant Manager Devil posted:FREEBACKER ON THE LAND oh god lmao I DO NOT ENJOINDER MY PLEDGE TO YOUR MARITIME LAW
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Jan 4, 2021 08:32
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Original_Z posted:The best part are when the comments eventually change to "I contacted Kickstarter and they said I can't get my money back". At one point the kickstarter TOS stated that project owners 'should' refund backers if they can't deliver the project. They might even still state that; I can't be bothered to go and check. It's also arguable (as in I've seen a legal blog or two that argues) that consumer protection laws cover kickstarters as well as retail transactions, in which case backers might have a claim against the project owner for breach of contract. Posting "I invoke my rights" in the comments section is of course not how you go about actually claiming under those rights.
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Jan 4, 2021 08:59
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I've always been under the impression that consumer laws (what few we have) and such do kinda cover crowdfunding but to get anything like that enforced in the US you'd need to sue. That then means you need a lot of money and and a lot of time to waste. There's really not any feasible recourse to getting hosed over for $60 or whatever, especially if the developer actually made a good faith effort. Sankis fucked around with this message at 14:57 on Jan 4, 2021 |
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Jan 4, 2021 14:55
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I think I found THE most indie thing on kickstarter yet: Coronoa Celestia quote:We are a team of two friends, Matija, the programmer, and me, Renato, the producer. My role is mostly to support him on this project with game design ideas, playtesting and management, while he covers the code and other development.
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Jan 4, 2021 15:37
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Meanwhile this looks genuinely cool, it's a Doom WAD-style metroidvania FPS: Vomitoreum  
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Jan 4, 2021 15:42
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